Maajid Nawaz

Maajid Nawaz (2 November 1978-) was the founder of the counter-extremist group Quilliam, seeking to challenge the thoughts of Islamic extremists. Nawaz was a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic extremist group, leading to his arrest in Egypt. Later, he changed his ways after Amnesty International freed him, founding Quilliam.

Biography
Maajid Nawaz was born on 2 November 1978 in Essex, England, United Kingdom to a family of Sunni Muslim Pakistanis. At the age of sixteen he joined Hizb ut-Tahrir, an extremist group that preached pan-Islamism, and at the age of 21 he married fellow Islamist Rabia Ahmed and had a son named Ammar. In December 2001 he was arrested in Egypt for being a radical Islamist, and he was released in 2006 after reading human rights books and speaking with Amnesty International. In 2007, he left Hizb ut-Tahrir and divorced his wife, who refused to leave the extremist ideology. Along with fellow former Islamist Ed Husain, he founded Quilliam, a think tank that challenged the narrative of Islamic extremism. He joined the Liberal Democrats, and he advocated secularism. Nawaz spoke at various anti-terrorism functions, where he opposed extrajudicial detention and drone strikes and instead advocated the debunking of Islamist beliefs instead of focusing on stopping refugees from arriving in Europe.